Underground explorers and the shocking dimensions of the world's deepest cave

Just how far down do you think the deepest caves on the planet go? As far down as the Washington Monument is tall? How about the Eiffel Tower?

A project dubbed "The Call of the Abyss" took explorers to the deepest cave on Earth, and they ventured down to a breathtaking depth of nearly 2,200 meters - around 1.3 miles.

The depth of the cave, named "Krubera-Varonya," is fascinating, but the winding length of the entire cave system also boggles the mind. Located in the Arabika Massif, of the Western Caucasus in Abkhazia, Georgia, it extends for 13.432 kilometers, or roughly 8.3 miles.

To date, Krubera-Varonya is the only cave known on the planet that plunges past 2,000 meters in depth.

The vast cave is the hyphenated name for the first Russian explorer to find the cavernous path, and for the bats that have been found within.

Lest you think the cave merely offers some beautiful, if not fear-of-heights-inducing photos, the explorers who have traversed this cave have had to endure some seriously frightening moments. Cave explorers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem experienced a flash underground flood, forcing them to remain isolated from any contacts for about 30 hours.

Or can you imagine being the first explorer to volunteer for the trip across the "terminal sump" - the spot in a cave where the only way to keep going is to swim underwater with nothing but cave walls all around until you find air again.

It looks a little something like this when you finally surface again. No. Thank. You.

Reader Comments

poenut · 2014-03-29T01:38:03Z

Big Balls

Cave explorers must have the biggest balls on earth.

carefix · 2014-03-29T02:55:14Z

Actually Big Balls are not a great deal of use when it comes to caving....

[Link]

sass · 2014-03-29T07:50:37Z

carefix, that's a frightening utube!

Poenut, on second thoughts small balls would be less of a liability slipping through those crevices.

lilies · 2014-03-29T14:15:03Z

Makes one wonder

Just 2 kilometers, where the mantle is near 3000 deep. Makes ample space for underground civilizations sprawling down there. Few hundred miles down and no earthquakes are felt, there is light, air and no killer sun rays so people can live lot longer allegedly.

It would be interesting to read the real encyclopedia of Under-Earth history, what happened down there, when surface nations went down. Also whats up with Under-Earth politics, who rules, are there free zones or the whole space is ruled by Big Brother mixed-density powers to be?

After all its still "our" Earth, in our time an density.

closefriendofgod · 2014-03-29T17:21:31Z

WNS

It is called spelunking. It regard to WNS I do hope they disinfected themselves before entering.

Jean Michel · 2014-03-31T10:56:14Z

This particular cavern is just a baby compared to the undiscovered or unrevealed caverns that riddle the Earth's crust.

There are countless legends of extremely vast, city-sized caverns from all over the ancient world. Stories of very large underground civilizations have been told for countless generations.

What I wonder, is that if they were ever to find signs of habitation in these cave systems, would we ever hear about it?

mazix · 2014-04-02T02:41:29Z

Just like the Bermuda triangle there are dimensional gateways to places that would be thought is inside the earth. Some civilizations live just beneath the surface, like under the pyramids in egypt. But at the core of the planet there are no civilizations in our physical world, they would "appear" to be there going through portals that would be aligned in that general direction.

Unkl Brws · 2014-04-01T15:32:10Z

Richard Sauder

I always think of Richard Sauder's work when I read articles like this. I've found that you did a podcast with him in 2007; [Link]

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Underground explorers and the shocking dimensions of the world's deepest cave

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